Vice President elect Kamala Harris grew up engaged with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India. But her mother Shyamala Gopalan, a biomedical scientist, born in the Indian city of Madras seemed to have embraced Oakland's black culture, immersing her two daughters - Kamala and her younger sister Maya - within it. 

Harris spoke about her growing up days many a time. This is how she had elegantly written about it in her autobiography, The Truths We Hold. 

“My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women." 

Her biracial roots- Harris's father was Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, Donald J Harris and upbringing mean she embodies and can engage with and appeal to many American identities. At many levels many could see an aspirational symbol in her. 

But it could well be her time at Howard University, one of the nation's preeminent historically black colleges and universities, that became the most formative and valuable experiences that shaped Kamala Harris’s life.  

"You students have joined the fight for justice - you protested. From the streets of Ferguson to the halls of the United States Congress, you have lived the words of James Baldwin. There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” she toled the students at  Howard University in 2017. 

Her early years included a brief period in Canada when her mother taught at McGill University. Kamala and Maya attended school in Montreal for five years. 

She told the Washington Post in 2019, that politicians should not have to fit into compartments.  "My point was: I am who I am. I'm good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I'm fine with it," she said. 
In 2014, Senator Harris married lawyer Doug Emhoff.